A Weblog by One Humble Bookman on Topics of Interest to Discerning Readers, Including (Though Not Limited To) Science Fiction, Books, Random Thoughts, Fanciful Family Anecdotes, Publishing, Science Fiction, The Mating Habits of Extinct Waterfowl, The Secret Arts of Marketing, Other Books, Various Attempts at Humor, The Wonders of New Jersey, the Tedious Minutiae of a Boring Life, Science Fiction, No Accounting (For Taste), And Other Weighty Matters.

Who Is This Hornswoggler?

Andrew Wheeler is a Vassar alum, class of 1990. He spent 16 years as a bookclub editor (mostly for the Science Fiction Book Club), and then moved into marketing. He marketed books and related products to accountants for Wiley for eight years, and now works for Thomson Reuters as Senior Marketer for Corporate Counsel. He was a judge for the 2005 World Fantasy Awards and the 2008 Eisner Awards. He also reviewed a book a day for a year twice. He lives with The Wife and two mostly tame sons (Thing One, born 1998; and Thing Two, born 2000) at an unspecified location in suburban New Jersey. He has been known to drive a minivan, and nearly all of his writings are best read in a tone of bemused sarcasm. Antick Musings’s manifesto is here. All opinions expressed here are entirely and purely those of Andrew Wheeler, and no one else.

Monday, December 01, 2014

Since I review books, I get books to review -- not always things I've expected or asked for, which makes it even more interesting. I list those books here, every week, because it seem to me that I've got a responsibility to do so -- it comes with getting things for free.

This week, there's only one book, but, luckily, it's one I read the first time around and can recommend wholeheartedly: Diana Wynne Jones's only official fantasy novel for adults, Deep Secret. (Most of her work was published as Young Adult, aimed at teenagers, and adults had to search for those books -- this one was a change-up.) The universe is a sister of her popular Chrestomanci series, with the magicians keeping the worlds safe called Magids here, and Deep Secret reads much like Wynne Jones's best books for teens, only with a bit more space and scope to stretch out.

If that's not enough, Deep Secret is primarily set at a science fiction convention -- and, I've been told, one set at a particular hotel that a lot of British fans know well from real-world conventions that were held there.

Deep Secret was originally published in the UK in 1997, made it to the US in hardcover in 1999, and has never before had a paperback edition on this side of the pond. That's finally changed, as of this Tor edition, which is on sale on December 16th. It's a great, deeply entertaining and wonderful novel by the author of Howl's Moving Castle and Witch Week and many more books -- and, even better, it's a great introduction to Diana Wynne Jones for adults who managed to miss her teen books when they were the correct age.